Some Questions of Trevor

Steven Coyle · Post by **Steven Coyle** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:33 am

Kelly,

"Meditation in the midst of activity, is a billion times superior to meditation in stillness." - Hakuin

Not much of a "comment" :-)

Good to see you again.

Pye · Post by **Pye** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:10 am

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Trevor writes:

I just read . . . and saw, essentially, "postmodernism is whatever the hell I, or anyone else, wants it to be (being both a philosophic movement and 'neutral' description of this era); and, being so, I'm convinced that it, and all its major assumptions, is correct."

Poor reading skills, Trevor. You're not-seeing, but seeing-red.
The age is called "postmodern." (I didn't name it.)
The philosophy "postmodernism" that takes its names from the qualities of the age is analytical/linguistic in nature. (I didn't invent it; don't like reading it.)
Try a fellow named Jean-Francois Lyotard on for size; or a fellow named Donald Davidson. They are postmodern philosophers. Why not see for yourself. It's all linguistics and analytics, and torturously so.

Trevor: My experience with post-modernists is that they are much closer to the pre-Socratic sophists

You're making a mistake here, too. "Sophists" and the "PreSocratics" were entirely different kettles of fish.

Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Diogenes of Apollinia, Empedocles, Anaxagoras et al are so-named the Pre-Socratic philosophers/philosophies.

"Sophists" were teachers of rhetoric living in Socrates' day (he was also accused of sophistry at his own trial). They were a direct offshoot of the democratization of Athens, where now that everybody (land-owning men) has a chance to speak, they want to be able to speak the most convincingly to get everyone to vote their way. Sophistry is the art of persuasion and usually relies upon emotional/sentimental response in the listener, and not reasoning.

They live on today in politicians, trial lawyers, and marketing/advertising people. Actually, sophistry has lived with us through every age . . . .

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Pye · Post by **Pye** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:21 am

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Oh, and the pastiche thing -- this is not what postmodern philosophers are doing themselves - it is what they are observing is being done in the age, in the name of all sorts of things, from songs-on-the-radios (all the re-hash remakes), to the thought processes of people. Cut-and-paste living; and no more "originals."

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Trevor Salyzyn · Post by **Trevor Salyzyn** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:24 am

Poor reading skills, Trevor. You're not-seeing, but seeing-red.

I'm not surprised that I see more than you intended to say. That doesn't, however, mean you didn't say it.

The philosophy "postmodernism" that takes its names from the qualities of the age is analytical/linguistic in nature. (I didn't invent it; don't like reading it.)

What takes its name from what? Be careful here. Why was the word "post-" needed in the first place: is it historical, or merely ideological?

There is a lot more to the philosophy, by the way, than linguistic analysis (for instance, everything that convinces a person that linguistic analysis is fruitful).

Try a fellow named Jean-Francois Lyotard on for size; or a fellow named Donald Davidson. They are postmodern philosophers. Why not see for yourself. It's all linguistics and analytics, and torturously so.

If post-modernism was actually, as you suggest, limited to such a small group of people doing such a trivial activity, it would be insignicant. But you actually went so far as to claim that David is a post-modernist, which means you obviously don't entirely believe that post-modernism is that restricted. You aren't recommending I read David's writing to understand what post-modernism is.

I am confused as to why you believe such a glaring contradiction. As a weak guess, I would say you are equivocating.

Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Diogenes of Apollinia, Empedocles, Anaxagoras et al are so-named the Pre-Socratic philosophers/philosophies.

Yes, I've read Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy. I still don't care. I used "pre-Socratic sophists", not "pre-Socratic philosophers". I wasn't talking about this crew at all, but was making an entirely different point. I think you are the one inventing things; "pre-Socratic", as an adjective, only means "before Socrates".

They live on today in politicians, trial lawyers, and marketing/advertising people. Actually, sophistry has lived with us through every age . . . .

Yes, and sophists also live on in philosophy professors, political scientists, and basically anyone whose career requires them to make arguments apart from certainty.

Oh, and the pastiche thing -- this is not what postmodern philosophers are doing themselves - it is what they are observing is being done in the age, in the name of all sorts of things, from songs-on-the-radios (all the re-hash remakes), to the thought processes of people. Cut-and-paste living; and no more "originals."

Just like the deconstructionists that refuse to be deconstructed. I'm sorry, but if you notice a rule about human language or thought, you don't spontaneously get excluded from it. That's magical thinking.

Really, though, what you are describing here I arrive at by thoroughly applying cause-and-effect analysis to mimetics (how ideas transfer). It's self-evidently true, and there is no way for a post-modernist to escape it.

Pye · Post by **Pye** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:52 am

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Trevor writes:

But you actually went so far as to claim that David is a post-modernist, which means you obviously don't entirely believe that post-modernism is that restricted.

#6 was goat-getting. Read again Trevor. I said "David could be considered . . . " by the very people and very age in which he thinks he is disattached.

Trevor: "pre-Socratic", as an adjective, only means "before Socrates".

And we have established that they were not "before Socrates." They were the living phenomenon of his day, in which he himself was (mistakenly) associated.

Trevor: Why was the word "post-" needed in the first place: is it historical, or merely ideological?

*lol* because it's come after the Modern age both historically and ideologically! I just said I didn't name it . . . . this is the best rationale I can (and you could have) come up with.

Trevor, this is not so hard. We live in a certain age, no doubt ushered in and defined by exponential use of technology. It marks a change from the prior age without such exponential technology. Because of that, it marks a change in the way we transmit meaning. Philosophers living today take note of the changes of the age, and they make their philosophy about this. The largest changes of all have been in linguistics and analytics - how we transmit meaning; how much we are or have been able to rely upon fixed meaning for words; how much we are unable to do so now, since meaning is transmitted to us in many different forms. You can put the rest together; coffee break's over.

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Trevor Salyzyn · Post by **Trevor Salyzyn** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 9:19 am

Pye,

#6 was goat-getting. Read again Trevor. I said "David could be considered . . . " by the very people and very age in which he thinks he is disattached.

So long as you recognize that what you said wasn't true. David is a far cry from a post-modernist: if you really considered him otherwise, you would not have done this whole "I'm a post-modernist, but so are you, even though I disagree with you on everything" thing.

And we have established that they were not "before Socrates." They were the living phenomenon of his day, in which he himself was (mistakenly) associated.

Granted, but I would rather (perhaps romantically) believe that Socrates had a huge influence on sophistry by pulling many would-be sophists into philosophy.

*lol* because it's come after the Modern age both historically and ideologically! I just said I didn't name it . . . . this is the best rationale I can (and you could have) come up with.

Well, you gave three different definitions of post-modernism: that it's historical, that it's ideological, and that it's an insult (when you tried to get David's goat). I could infer from your ambiguity several other possible things that post-modernism could potentially be. I saw, quite understandably, an out-of-control attempt at defining something and so thought to myself, "this concept is quite a bit bigger than this person immediately thought it was."

Now, I think the following paragraph is the clearest expression of what the major beliefs of post-modernism are that you have so far given:

We live in a certain age, no doubt ushered in and defined by exponential use of technology. It marks a change from the prior age without such exponential technology. Because of that, it marks a change in the way we transmit meaning. Philosophers living today take note of the changes of the age, and they make their philosophy about this. The largest changes of all have been in linguistics and analytics - how we transmit meaning; how much we are or have been able to rely upon fixed meaning for words; how much we are unable to do so now, since meaning is transmitted to us in many different forms.

I could take this as a slightly long definition of what post-modernists believe, and why they view linguistic analysis as important.

However, I do not entirely agree on two points:
1) that the largest changes have been in language: most modern languages are still primitive, AND the work of such thinkers as Russel and Wittgenstein has done a lot to prevent idealists from working toward consciously improving our language (for the rather weak reason that a "perfect language" is impossible). Any changes to language have been unconscious or poorly considered.

2) That, even were language where the most change is occuring, that would still not mean linguistic analysis is where philosophers should be focusing their energies. Basically, I don't agree with the ethics behind it. Languages should be shaped toward a goal, not merely analyzed; they are one aspect of a larger picture.

Kelly Jones · Post by **Kelly Jones** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:55 am

From the "New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought" (2000):

post-modernism. A now familiar yet still controversial term for defining the overall direction of experimental tendencies in Western arts, architecture, media, etc., since the 1950s, particularly recent developments associated with post-industrial society and cultural globalization. The term holds its own paradox; it suggests modernism is decisively over and a new artistic era has succeeded, yet also implies that successor movements are dependent on it, or in continuous revolt against it. It also suggests a wider historical situation of post-modernity - a post-modern condition, as the French post-structuralist J.-F. Lyotard calls it, a fading of progressive modernity, marked by distinctive ideological, philosophical, cultural, social and technological circumstances, and the end of totalistic explanations or 'grand narratives'. Most modern attempts at definition usggest that the post-modern condition arises from the broad if belated acceptance of modernism and its avant-garde aspirations as the dominant 20th-century tradition - hence centralizing the avant-garde, but proposing a later cultural stage in which experience has been transformed by new technologies, typologies and changed world conditions.

In aesthetic terms, this has given the post-1945 artist an unprecedentedly wide, pluricultural range of styles, techniques, technologies, and ranges of reference - and also created distinctive uncertainty about their use and authority. Hence post-modernism is often associated with a revolt against order, representation, narrative, system and signification, and a tendency towards eclecticism, irony, parody, quotation, self-referentiality and indeterminacy. In architecture, post-modernism now refers largely to building design subsequent to the Modern Movement - Mies van der Rohe, etc. - and a move from explicit functionalism towards eclectic quotation and colourful play (e.g. the architecture of Robert Venturi, Richard Rogers, I.M.Pei, Charles Moore). In painting, tendencies from the 1950s acceptance of abstract expressionism - pop art, conceptual art, body art, video art, the cults of improvisation and installation - have been seen as 'post-modern'. In music, work from Messiaen, Stockhausen, John Cage and John Adams, again marked by amatory qualities, play with techno-sonic effects, and forms of minimalism, have been similarly identified. In literature, the term links a very wide variety of tendencies in fiction, drama and poetry subsequent to James Joyce, and inclining to what John Barth has called 'the literature of exhaustion', a writing at once conscious of the 'usedupedness' of forms and the dying of 'true stories', and of the eclectic possibilities of quotation, pastiche and generic self-consciousness that arise once such notions are accepted. In the novel this ranges among phenomena as diverse as the French noveau roman, the cut-up novel (Wiliam S. Burroughs), the self-reflexive novel (Nabokov, Beckett, Borges, Brooke-Rose), the cybernetic novel (Pynchon, Gaddis, Gibson), and the magic realist novel (Marquez, Cortazar, Rushdie, Eco). The general tendency is to render uncertainty, eclecticism and anti-representationalism as the basis of art. Simiarly a variety of merged forms - multi-media arts, happenings and improvisations, crossovers between high art and kitsch, the hybridization made possible by ever more open access to video, film, digital technologies and editing - can be captured under the heading of post-modernism.

The strongest philosophical context has been that of structuralism, deconstruction and feminism, late-20th-century philosophies of demystification, decanonisation and decentring which move beyond humanist notions of subject and object, nature and being, and the 'modern' project of the Enlightenment. Some recent debate - particularly that between the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas and Lyotard - has proposed that post-modernism is the spirit of an age of counter-revolutionary politics, avant-garde exhaustion and defeated progressive impulses, in contrast to a stronger, more ideologically conscious modernism. But as modernism contained both the radical and the conservative, so has post-modernism, which has shown a tendency to aesthetic play, but has also owed much to the radical movements of the 1960s, and later feminist and post-colonial critiques of society (see post-colonialism), identity, nationalism and patriarchalism (see patriarchy). As modernism was a broad church containing many schisms and counter-tendencies, so it is with post-modernism. However, the contrasting strands and tendencies are harder to identify, because they are part of continuing contemporary debate and activity, and because the definition of post-modernism has become ever more wide-ranging and inclusive.

Indeed, according to Charles Jencks, "In the last ten years post-modernism has become more than a social condition and cultural movement, it has become a world view." Recent studies have emphasised this, devoting themselves not simply to artistic and cultural phenomena but to the changing paradigm of the age, deriving from structures of scientific knowledge, psycho-social notions of the decentring of the subject, medical advances in genetics and cloning, the internationalisation of experience in a time of rapid media access to other cultures, and the acceleration of technological change in post-industrial society. Fredric Jameson has it that "Post-modernism is what you have when the modernization process is complete and nature is gone for good", creating a world of simulacra, commodity fetishism, narcissism, affectless eroticism, depthless history, and, in cultural expression, 'the first specifically North American global style'.

Yet, for all the energetic argument, and the dominant sense that the latter half of the 20th century has seen a fundamental cultural change that has accelerated since the collapse of Marxism, post-modernism remains a catch-all term. It designates a still-amorphous body of cultural trends and directions, marked by eclecticism, pluriculturalism, and a post-industrial, hi-tech, internationalist frame of reference, coupled with a sceptical view of the technical progress which nonetheless enables many of its manifestations. Like structuralism and reconstruction, it appears both to revolt against and seek to recover humanism and some form of historical materialism. To date, it remains best seen as a complex map of late-20th-century cultural expressions, social directions, fantasies and anxieties, rather than as a clear-cut aesthetic or philosophical ideology. For further reading: J.-F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (1979; 1984); F.Jameson, Post-modernism: Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991); D.L.Marsden, Post-modernism: A Bibliography. 1926-1994 (1995).

Entry by Malcolm Bradbury

Postmodernism is denying the absoluteness of any truth. That must be why uni graduates think it's sane to contradict themselves, i suppose.

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[edited spelling.]

Pye · Post by **Pye** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:56 am

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Trevor writes:

David is a far cry from a post-modernist: if you really considered him otherwise, you would not have done this whole "I'm a post-modernist, but so are you, even though I disagree with you on everything" thing.

Yeah, right. I said that [/sarcasm]. I said that I was a postmodernist and that I disagreed with David on everything.[/sarcasm] Heads up, Trevor. I've been in agreement with a number of things David espouses, and the record of that is right here in a year's archive of threads.

Trevor: Well, you gave three different definitions of post-modernism: that it's historical, that it's ideological, and that it's an insult (when you tried to get David's goat).

It's a pejorative thing to David, not me. It's his sweeping dismissal the moment the word comes up. Postmodernism makes me no nevermind. It's no threat to truth. It's no threat to anything; it has no teeth, so there's no energy worth expending in crushing it.

Now you'll have to pardon me if I didn't explain the whole thing so immediately, so well, to your understanding. First, you'd think a great heaving dislike of something means you know what it is in the first place, so I would assume the same here with all you other postmodernism haters. Secondly, it ain't easy to define a whole philosophy or body of thought for anyone. You try it! And yes, it is both historical and ideological, as I already said. Again, the insult thing belongs to others.

Trevor: That, even were language where the most change is occuring, [Pye interrupting to say it is also its medium of transmission] that would still not mean linguistic analysis is where philosophers should be focusing their energies. Basically, I don't agree with the ethics behind it. Languages should be shaped toward a goal, not merely analyzed; they are one aspect of a larger picture.

Yeah, I agree. Language shaped toward a goal; poor focus of energies. I agree. And I have actually read the stuff. It wears me out. Still, the alacrity of word meaning and consideration of context are something all of us have to deal with anyway to make meaning. That is exactly and precisely what a forum is and does. So many of our questions to each other asking "What do you mean by that . . . . "

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Pye · Post by **Pye** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 12:01 pm

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Kelly writes:

Postmodernism is denying the absoluteness of any truth.

But it's no threat to truth. How could it be? How could anything be?

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Trevor Salyzyn · Post by **Trevor Salyzyn** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 2:16 pm

Yeah, right. I said that [/sarcasm]. I said that I was a postmodernist and that I disagreed with David on everything.[/sarcasm] Heads up, Trevor. I've been in agreement with a number of things David espouses, and the record of that is right here in a year's archive of threads.

Maybe I was quick in assuming your defense of postmodernism meant you were sympathetic toward it. I tend to believe that a person will only find reason to defend something that they believe to be true.

Since you are defending post-modernism against us "post-modern haters", it only seems logical that you must be a post-modernist.

It's a pejorative thing to David, not me. It's his sweeping dismissal the moment the word comes up. Postmodernism makes me no nevermind. It's no threat to truth. It's no threat to anything; it has no teeth, so there's no energy worth expending in crushing it.

Post-modernism, like pragmatism, corrupts minds with the belief that truth is relative.

And yes, it is both historical and ideological, as I already said. Again, the insult thing belongs to others.

I think calling it historical is already ideological... I don't believe that this age is any different than any other. People are still unwise, nihilistic, and poor at thinking.

Yeah, I agree. Language shaped toward a goal; poor focus of energies. I agree. And I have actually read the stuff. It wears me out. Still, the alacrity of word meaning and consideration of context are something all of us have to deal with anyway to make meaning. That is exactly and precisely what a forum is and does. So many of our questions to each other asking "What do you mean by that . . . . "

I agree (with your agreement with me?), except with one addition: content is important. Arguing about definitions and language is ridiculous unless there's something of substance within it.

Kelly Jones · Post by **Kelly Jones** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:39 pm

Pye wrote:Kelly writes:
Postmodernism is denying the absoluteness of any truth.
But it's no threat to truth. How could it be? How could anything be?

How could lying be a threat to truth? You tell me.

Diebert van Rhijn · Post by **Diebert van Rhijn** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 10:36 pm

Trevor Salyzyn wrote: to Pye:

Since you are defending post-modernism against us "post-modern haters", it only seems logical that you must be a post-modernist.

All I see is someone trying to define post-modernism differently, trying to catch its complexities without taking position against something that cannot be positioned against, if the given definition is followed.

To quote a bit from Kelly's quote:

As modernism was a broad church containing many schisms and counter-tendencies, so it is with post-modernism. However, the contrasting strands and tendencies are harder to identify, because they are part of continuing contemporary debate and activity, and because the definition of post-modernism has become ever more wide-ranging and inclusive.

To date, it remains best seen as a complex map of late-20th-century cultural expressions, social directions, fantasies and anxieties, rather than as a clear-cut aesthetic or philosophical ideology.

One thing I believe we could agree on, if we all really tried, is that it's hard to pin post-modernism down on anything at all. It doesn't address the question of absolute truths like the ones often discussed here. It addresses complete systems of thought, knowledge, meaning or belief, often combined with groups and social sciences. At its best, it's nuts and bolts stuff, never really involved in speculation about the whole machine. It never pretends to be able to talk about 'the whole machine' because it doesn't want to be a system of thought itself. At its best, in the realm of common worldviews it can be a tool box, disorganized and not designed even to handle the bigger questions of existence. But you can't avoid this hard to name toolbox as (self-)critical tool when you start reviewing world views with its politics, events, society, language, symbols and so on. A deconstruction which indeed might be destructive in the sense that it hollows out persons - unavoidable in such nihilist times, not a 'lie' but direction of flow.

See also this handy list of definitions generated by Google.

Diebert van Rhijn · Post by **Diebert van Rhijn** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 12:34 am

Perhaps it's also time to put post-modernism in a more comical context that explains its limitations and some true criticism toward it.

First there are floating around on the Web, so-called "post-modernism" article generators which produce with every view a new article demonstrating how the overly abstract and analytical can form a world on its own. Go here: post-modernist article generator

Of course this trick can just as well applied to other 'disciplines', like the Automated Computer Science Paper generator, or even better a Gnostic new age article generator that I lost the link to.

Now the fun part is that these random articles, pure bullshit in actual meaning and coherence sometimes can get accepted for journals or conferences. The most famous example is the case of the Sokal affair where a physics professor at the NYU (Sokal) submitted a bullshit parody article to a leading North American journal of cultural studie, without telling them it was a parody.

It was accepted for publication and Sokal writes

Social Text's acceptance of my article exemplifies the intellectual arrogance of Theory -- meaning postmodernist literary theory -- carried to its logical extreme. No wonder they didn't bother to consult a physicist. If all is discourse and ``text,'' then knowledge of the real world is superfluous; even physics becomes just another branch of Cultural Studies. If, moreover, all is rhetoric and ``language games,'' then internal logical consistency is superfluous too: a patina of theoretical sophistication serves equally well. Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors and puns substitute for evidence and logic. My own article is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this well-established genre.

I think this experiment shows the danger of post-modernism in science and academic thought or, in my view at least, the danger of all technocratic tendencies with its resulting fragmented tunnel vision.

Pye · Post by **Pye** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 7:38 am

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Thanks for the sanity, Diebert. And the humour.

Hyperbolic reactivity is an understandable thing as regarding a passion; but not as regarding logic, reason, and wisdom.

I'm sure David has all four of the above.

As do I.

Someday, maybe I can re-discuss subjective equilibrium; and re-disagree with the house interpretations, without the gavel marked "P" coming summarily down.

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Blair · Post by **Blair** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:31 pm

postmodernist = one who can't see the shit from the trees.

Kelly Jones · Post by **Kelly Jones** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:09 pm

Diebert wrote:All I see [in Pye] is someone trying to define post-modernism differently, trying to catch its complexities without taking position against something that cannot be positioned against

No, post-modernism is quite definitely an attitude that mocks all truth statements. Because this is so patently foolish, it deteriorates into jokes, playfulness, and "diverse cultural expressions" very quickly. That's why it has lasted so long and is popular within workplaces.

It's hard-to-catch, because it definitely and deliberately doesn't want to be pinned down. That is exactly how it can be pinned down, because that is an absolutist, and very clear-cut attitude.

Have another look at this quote:

The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought wrote:the contrasting strands and tendencies are harder to identify, because they are part of continuing contemporary debate and activity, and because the definition of post-modernism has become ever more wide-ranging and inclusive.

To date, it remains best seen as a complex map of late-20th-century cultural expressions, social directions, fantasies and anxieties, rather than as a clear-cut aesthetic or philosophical ideology.

Diebert wrote:might be destructive in the sense that it hollows out persons - unavoidable in such nihilist times, not a 'lie' but direction of flow.

It is a lie at its very core. It is coy. It is saying, "Come on now, relax, it's not serious....."

I see a direct relationship between the demoralised and confused minds that mock all statements about truth, and a situation where everyone is expected to help create and demand stores chock-full of expensive, useless junk.

Don't you?

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Diebert van Rhijn · Post by **Diebert van Rhijn** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:58 pm

Kelly,

Why do you single out post-modernism for this 'crime against truth' act? How would you say Modernism, early or late Antiquity or the Middle Ages relate to truth statements and confused minds?

This all sounds like a category error to me. Post-modernism tries even to escape categories and perhaps that's its real crime.

For me reading some post-modern philosophical thought helped providing some tools to deal with the nuts and bolts of modernity: media and its overflow of hidden and not so hidden signs and symbols, modern architecture, relation to technology and so on. Has this anything to do with ultimate reality? No, and the fact that a few will rise to use typical post-modern verbiage to explain why Lao Tzu said this or David Quinn said that, only says something about those people and doesn't tell you what post-modernism 'is'. A neuro-scientist might explain away a sage his behavior as well with his own scientific toolbox.

So the problem seems to be not the fact that people deconstruct the machine, claiming to have demystified it: "there is no ghost here, no god, no over-arcing principle". The problem is that the people have such a narrow focus that they cannot see the whole machine is the ghost. This is the problem of all ages.

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:16 am

Pye wrote:

Kelly: Postmodernism is denying the absoluteness of any truth.

Pye: But it's no threat to truth. How could it be? How could anything be?

Kelly has hit the nail on the head. The very essence of postmodernism, in all its various hues, is denying the absoluteness of truth, or even denying the very existence of truth. It does this by focusing the mind exclusively on process and ignoring content. It doesn't tackle the content. It simply ignores it.

That is how it can proclaim to the world that it possesses no content itself, that it isn't a set of beliefs or a collection of affirmed "truths". Its focus on process is so watertight and relentless that it cannot even see the content of its very own self. It truly believes that it has no content. The mental blocks are up and the madness has set in.

While I agree that it is worthwhile to deconstruct belief-systems and examine how they evolved in the context of wider society and so on, I consider this to be normal philosophic thinking. It is part and parcel of questioning everything in the spirit of uncovering truth. Postmodernists, however, have made a religion out of this questioning and now they are hiding away in it.

The purpose of all religion is to escape clarity of consciousness and understanding of truth; this is merely the postmodernist way of doing it. It is just as effective as the Christian way.

For Pye to remove herself from the category of postmodernism, she would have abandon her current fixation on process (and all that endless prattle about "subjective equilibrium", "sense of things", "truth is subjectivity", etc) and affirm at least one thing in life to be absolutely true.

I will be interested to see if she can actually do this. It would mean taking off that postmodernist costume.

Pye: But it's no threat to truth. How could it be? How could anything be?

It's no threat to truth, but it is a threat to wisdom (i.e. consciousness of truth.) If we go around telling everyone, particularly young kids, that everything is subjective, that there is no truth, or that truth is inaccessible to the human mind, then we are disabling whatever passion for truth they might have had from the outset. We would be ruining their spirituality before they even knew what was happening. In effect, we would be engaging in a form of child abuse.

The result is an increasingly hedonistic, fashion-conscious, nihilistic society, which is what we are witnessing at the moment.

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Cory Duchesne · Post by **Cory Duchesne** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:41 am

David Quinn wrote: The very essence of postmodernism, in all its various hues, is denying the absoluteness of truth, or even denying the very existence of truth. It does this by focusing the mind exclusively on process and ignoring content. It doesn't tackle the content. It simply ignores it.

David, do you mean; post-modernism doesn't attempt to judge one process as inferior or superior in comparision to another process?

In other words: post modernism doesnt face up to the task of contemplating the significance of value judgements?

It seems to me that all there is - is process.

However, if you value something, then some processes are more worthwhile than other processes.

And so by 'content', I'm assuming you mean: quality, value.

Pye · Post by **Pye** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:51 am

.

I leave below an excerpt from Kierkegaard. It goes some measure in addressing the subjective equilibrium topic I brought up regarding David; it re-addresses an old argument with Kevin regarding Kierkegaard's statements on the nature of faith; and it might even answer to Diebert that if I have been using "typical post-modern verbiage" in all of this, then Kierkegaard wrote the dictionary for it.

The objective accent falls on WHAT is said, the subjective accent on HOW it is said. This distinction holds even in the aesthetic realm, and receives definite expression in the principle that what is in itself true may in the mouth of such and such a person become untrue. In these times this distinction is particularly worthy of notice, for if we wish to express in a single sentence the difference between ancient times and our own, we should doubtless have to say: "In ancient times only an individual here and there knew the truth; now all know it, except that the inwardness of its appropriation stands in an inverse relationship to the extent of it dissemination. Aesthetically, the contradiction that truth becomes untruth in this or that person's mouth, is best construed comically: In the ethico-religious sphere, accent is again on the "how." But this is not to be understood as referring to demeanor, expression, or the like; rather it refers to the relationship sustained by the existing individual, in his own existence, to the content of his utterance. Objectively the interest is focussed merely on the thought-content, subjectively on the inwardness. At the maximum this inward "how" is the passion of the infinite, and the passion of the infinite is the truth. But the passion of the infinite is precisely subjectivity, and thus subjectivity becomes the truth . . . .

When subjectivity is the truth, the conceptual determination of the truth must include an expression for the antithesis to objectivity, a memento of the fork in the road where the way swings off; this expression will at the same time serve as an indication of the tension of the subjective inwardness. Here is such a definition of truth: An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth attainable for an existing individual. At the point where the way swings off (and where this cannot be specified objectively, since it is a matter of subjectivity), there objective knowledge is placed in abeyance. Thus the subject merely has, objectively, the uncertainty; but it is this which precisely increases the tension of that infinite passion which constitutes his inwardness. The truth is precisely the venture which chooses an objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite. I contemplate the order of nature in the hope of finding God, and I see omnipotence and wisdom; but I also see much else that disturbs my mind and excites anxiety. The sum of all this is an objective uncertainty. But it is for this very reason that the inwardness becomes as intense as it is, for it embraces this objective uncertainty with the entire passion of the infinite. In the case of a mathematical proposition the objectivity is given, but for this reason the truth of such a proposition is also indifferent to truth.

But the above definition of truth is an equivalent expression for faith. Without risk there is no faith. Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty.

-Kierkegaard
"Truth is Subjectivity" from Concluding Unscientific Postscript

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Carl G · Post by **Carl G** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:05 am

David Quinn wrote:
Kelly: Postmodernism is denying the absoluteness of any truth.

Pye: But it's no threat to truth. How could it be? How could anything be?
Kelly has hit the nail on the head. The very essence of postmodernism, in all its various hues, is denying the absoluteness of truth, or even denying the very existence of truth. It does this by focusing the mind exclusively on process and ignoring content. It doesn't tackle the content. It simply ignores it.

That is how it can proclaim to the world that it possesses no content itself, that it isn't a set of beliefs or a collection of affirmed "truths". Its focus on process is so watertight and relentless that it cannot even see the content of its very own self. It truly believes that it has no content. The mental blocks are up and the madness has set in.

While I agree that it is worthwhile to deconstruct belief-systems and examine how they evolved in the context of wider society and so on, I consider this to be normal philosophic thinking. It is part and parcel of questioning everything in the spirit of uncovering truth. Postmodernists, however, have made a religion out of this questioning and now they are hiding away in it.

Interesting, that's who I must have conversing with, three postmodernists, recently at another forum:

http://forum.commonascent.org/showthread.php?t=1370

Original premise:

"Do not feel absolutely certain of anything." ~ Bertrand Russell, 1954

My response:

"False, and not just because the statement itself urges certainty. For instance, logically, it is possible to be absolutely certain that all things are caused."

Retorts:

Poster 1:

"No it's not. What even makes you think that all things are caused, much less gives you grounds for absolute certainty about it?"

Poster 2:

"It is very much NOT certain that all things are caused. There is no reason to act as if they are not, since experience seems to show they are, but that doesn't mean they always have been, always are, or always will be."

Poster 3:

"Indeed, if you can prove all things have a cause (or even one thing for that matter), then you will succeed where Kant (arguably) failed, and probably win tenure as philosopher at some university. It's like Hume said, we never see "cause." We only see the constant conjunction of supposed cause and supposed effect."

David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:10 am

Pye wrote:

1. No one is stating over and over, as you do, that postmodernism is all about the relativity of truth.

If they are not asserting that truth is relative, they are at least asserting that pure truth is unknowable by the human mind. I haven't met a postmodernist who didn't adopt at least one of these positions.

The possibility of an individual knowing truth is a complete anathema to everything the postmodernists stands for.

It's about the tools used to be able to say anything of the what-is -- their efficacy, security, nuances or faults. We now know that words are not made of eternal stone and that they depend upon context for their living breath.

It may have started off in that fashion, but it has since become so much more than that. As with quantum mechanics, layers of religious fantasy have been built up around it over time.

This quickly happens to anything which seemingly attacks the integrity of truth and logic. It's always a very popular thing to do.

3. Okay, I'll play either/or with you: If I am 100% postmodern, and all your readers are not, then absolutely nothing I have written here over the last year would have made any sense to anyone or been agreed with in any way.

We have all grown up in the postmodern era, so we all know what you mean when you talk about "subjective equilibrium" and "sense of things", and the like. These sort of concepts were part of our conditioning.

4. Either/or thinking prevents you from seeing the subtleties of this.

Your tendency to shy away from either/or thinking (i.e. pure logical thought) is preventing you from rising out of the fuzzy swamp of postmodernism.

Medieval theology also had its fair share of subtleties, probably just as many as postmodernism, but that it doesn't mean it isn't a load of bollocks from top to bottom.

5. Philosophical subjectivity is not relativity -- you miss the subtleties here as well. Here is an object or a circumstance: One person makes an observation about it; another makes a sharper observation about it; a third even even sharper one, and so on. So there is an object to say something about, but only subjectivities to hone in on it to varying degrees.

And what about an infinitely sharp observation, where there is no error or approximation at all?

Philosophical subjectivity is not "I'm okay; you're okay" (although really, this is true!). This is the beauty of Kierkegaard's thunderous statement: it does not say "Truth is subjective"; it says "Truth is subjectivity. There is a river of difference flowing between.

Everything that happens is Truth?

6. You could be considered a postmodern philosopher on a couple of grounds: One is situational, because you live during this so-named era (a neutral description, I assure you, coming right after what was called the Modern" age) and call yourself a philosopher.

Nietzsche was born in a Christian era, but he wasn't a Christian.

And secondly, your philosophy is built of prior philosophies, distilled and assembled to your sense of things -- a phenomenon postmodernists call "pastiche" -- where we can "paste" together at will things that have already existed into new configurations, according to our sense of things. We can do this because this is to where human mind has developed, where priorly, we could only take musings from authority on their authority, and as-is.

This statement has no content.

7. I'm a thinker, David. This means that I can traverse any number of philosophical ideas for their merit (or not) and not feel categorically threatened by any one of them. I go where my float ball rises the highest.

And yet you balk at entering the realm of ultimate truth.

If, like a good postmodernist, you steadfastly dismiss all content, then it is no surprise that you can traverse any number of philosophic ideas and not feel threatened by them. The mental trick of turning everything into a subjective process can defeat all philosophical threats. Yet such trickery also prevents you from entering the realm of ultimate truth.

So it is a second-rate level of freedom that you have settled for.

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David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 12:41 pm

Pye wrote:

I leave below an excerpt from Kierkegaard. It goes some measure in addressing the subjective equilibrium topic I brought up regarding David; it re-addresses an old argument with Kevin regarding Kierkegaard's statements on the nature of faith; and it might even answer to Diebert that if I have been using "typical post-modern verbiage" in all of this, then Kierkegaard wrote the dictionary for it.

It should be remembered that Concluding Unscientific Postscript, from which that quote was extracted, was authored by the pseudonym, "Johannes Climacus", and thus does not really represent Kierkegaard's true thinking on these matters. He was simply exploring the postmodernist mode of thought - albeit ahead of his time, before the term "postmodernism" was coined.

It was part of the first half of his literary career in which he used pseudonyms to explore things like love, marriage, conventional ethics, conventional religion,, and in this instance, the increasingly conventional realm of postmodernist thought. He left all that behind when he started writing under his own name and taking his spirituality more seriously.

If it was truly the case that "objective uncertainty" is a necessary condition for "the infinite passion of inwardness", then by rights I should conceive God (or Truth) in the most absurd manner possible - e.g. as constituting the crumbled piece of paper currently residing in my bin. To base my entire existence on the belief that the Creator of heaven and earth was actually a crumbled piece of paper is bound to make me feel really uncertain and should, according to this line of thinking, power my inwardness and faith no end.

To have inward passion for an "objective uncertainty" is easy and very common. Islamic fundamentalists and faithful husbands do it all the time. But to have infinite inward passion for what is objectively certain - now that is a very rare attainment.

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David Quinn · Post by **David Quinn** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:11 pm

Carl G,

Interesting, that's who I must have conversing with, three postmodernists, recently at another forum:

http://forum.commonascent.org/showthread.php?t=1370

You're doing a pretty good job there. I like the way that you're keeping it nice and tight and allowing the others to flounder about trying to wedge that all-important doubt into it.

The bottom line is, as far as the issue of causality is concerned, is that non-causality (the idea that things can pop into existence without any cause at all) is intrinsically impossible. For even a state of "nothingness", whatever that means, qualifies as a casual condition. It arises via causal conditions (the absence of other things) and it has its own effects.

The fellow called "xpsyuvz" who says that there may be things we can't imagine is missing the point. Causality is built into the very definition of what it means for a thing to exist. It is like arguing that there may be married bachelors out there we can't imagine. He's got no idea.

"Do not feel absolutely certain of anything." ~ Bertrand Russell,

In other words, avoid truth.

Thanks, Bert. You're a winner!

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Iolaus · Post by **Iolaus** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:52 pm

I've been having an ongoing conversation with someone. It began on the topic of evolution, with me insisting that theistic evolution is necessarily not really compatible with pure, Darwinian, atheistic evolution. This guy claims to believe in God, to be more or less a believing Jew, and he has made statements such as that God created the world as a gift of love, that God reveals himself, and maybe even redeems mankind. Yet he holds to the idea that he is not a theistic evolutionist. All I tried to do is point out that if he believes that God in some fashion created the world, then science itself is a discovery of what God created. Yet he states that 'metaphysical' beliefs are in a 'different magisteria' than scientific discovery. OK, I say, but it is one world we are talking about, and at some point the discoveries must converge. He insists that spiritual truths live in some forever separate realm from nuts and bolts scientific discoveries. I am in italics.

Here are some excerpts. Is he a postmodernist?

But you seem not to admit that those worlds (the one created by God and the one we study in science) are one world. There is just one reality. Perhaps you are right that science language is literal and spiritual descriptions are not. Perhaps it is true we cannot comprehend what the existence of God even means. But whether we can ever discover the coherent metaphysical system or not, it must be how things are.

I donâ€™t â€œadmit that those worlds are one worldâ€ because I donâ€™t see what it means to assert that â€œall those worlds are one world.â€ Notice: I donâ€™t know what it means to assert that, and I also donâ€™t know what it would mean to deny that. Itâ€™s a piece of ornamentation or decoration; it may sound nice, but Iâ€™m not convinced that it really means anything.
This of course gets us into the problem: what is meaning? More precisely, what is for a sentence (i.e. an assertion or its denial) to mean something? I take the position that the meaning of an assertion (or its denial) is tracked by (a) the circumstances under which it is appropriate to make such an assertion and (b) the inferential consequences of that assertion.
In this case, I donâ€™t know what the appropriate circumstances are of saying â€œall these worlds are descriptions of one worldâ€ â€“ or what Iâ€™d be inferentially committing myself to if I did say so. So Iâ€™m inclined to neither assert nor deny that â€œall those worlds are one world,â€ since I donâ€™t know what that means.

There can only be one reality, one universe, one ultimate cause of existence. Existence cannot have more than one cause, or be caused over and over again from different sources.

Well, and how do you know that? Is it an a priori principle? A fundamental axiom? Or is it something you discovered through experience or through investigation?

I find it very easy to talk about what exists, and very perplexing to talk about â€œexistence.â€ Put otherwise, I know very well how to use sentences of the form â€œ_______ exists,â€ whereas I have no real clue about how to use sentences of the form â€œExistence is _______.â€ In fact I rather suspect that sentences of the latter form are foisted on us by our grammatical habits, and that they donâ€™t actually mean anything at all.

Maybe Iâ€™m not entirely sure what youâ€™re getting at. You could have a table, and you could describe it in ordinary language and state its purpose and dimensions; you could have an artist draw it, perhaps even impressionistically; and you could have a physicist describe its inner molecular structure and how the laws of physics hold it together. Same table, different aspects are described.

But hereâ€™s the problem: how do you know itâ€™s the same table? In order to be able to say that, there would need to be agreed-upon criteria for identity. But if the descriptions are too different, then there are no such criteria. In any event, I donâ€™t see whatâ€™s gained by insisting that the table is the same table.

What we discover in science is the creation of God.

Perhaps here I find another way of expressing my dissent from your position. In this sentence you stipulate an identity between â€œwhat we discover in scienceâ€ and what is â€œthe creation of God.â€ That identity is expressed through the â€œis.â€ But, to return to the problem of the table posed above, how could one know that scientific theories describe the same thing as the divine creation?

One might respond that they must describe the same thing, if they are both true. But how do you know that? In other words, what justifies the assertion that all true descriptions must be descriptions of the same thing? I donâ€™t see it.

GENIUS FORUMS

Some Questions of Trevor

post-modernism fun